Jacob Limberios died by gunshot wound to the head on March 2, 2012 around 9:30 P.M. Jacob was hanging out with three other acquaintances in a house the night he was shot. The three witnesses, along with Jacob, all took a turn test firing a gun in the backyard of the house prior to Jacob’s death. Alcohol was consumed prior to the test firing. After test firing the gun, Jacob and the three witnesses went inside the house. At that time, Jacob completely unloaded the gun onto the floor. One of the witnesses at the house picked both the casings and the live round up from the floor. Apparently, Jacob then reloaded the live round into the gun. Jacob then handed the gun to another witness whom requested to see the gun again. The gun was supposedly passed around among the three witnesses. One of the witnesses admitted that Jacob warned the others to be careful because there was a live round was in the chamber.

Around that time, Jacob was shot in the head. All three of the people at the house contended that Jacob shot himself.

Within minutes of the shooting, the Sandusky County Sheriff’s Department was dispatched to the scene. Two officers were the first to arrive at the scene, and within an hour, the Sandusky County Sheriff also arrived. At one point, the Officers were heard laughing over Jacob’s dead body, with one of them questioning who was going to pick up the bill for clean up. This occurred while Michael Limberios, Jacob’s father, stood outside the house in the freezing cold, grieving the loss of his son.

In violation of its own standard procedure, no Detective was called to the scene that night. In addition to not calling a qualified investigator to the scene, the Sheriff’s Department: did not separate the three witnesses; did not call in the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation; did not call in the Coroner; did not require the witnesses to take a breathalyzer, or otherwise determine their blood/alcohol content; did not collect the evidence that would assist in determining the amount of alcohol that had been consumed; allowed one of the witnesses to change her clothes at the death scene without taking them into evidence; allowed another witness to throw away his blood-splattered shoes in the Deputy’s presence; did not retrieve the bullet from the attic of the residence; did not collect DNA or fingerprints from the witnesses; did not submit the gun for testing, or otherwise having appropriate tests conducted; did not take measurements of the room, did not document the location of physical evidence in the room, did not document the location of the bullet hole in the ceiling, and/or did not document the location of where the bullet lodged in the attic; did not collect and preserving Jacob’s clothing; did not require Jacob’s body to be properly examined to gather valuable forensic evidence; and allowed Jacob’s body to be removed, embalmed and buried within a matter of days.

Further there were several inconsistencies with the statements given by the three witnesses in the house that night. In particular, at least one witness stated that Jacob warned the others that the gun was loaded but later contended that Jacob may not have known the gun was loaded. The assertion that Jacob may not have known the gun was loaded was adopted by the Sheriff’s Department and the Coroner in their official reports. In fact, on Jacob’s Death Certificate, the Sandusky County Coroner specifically stated: “deceased shot self in the head, may not have realized the gun was loaded.”

Further, two of the witnesses at the house told investigators that Jacob was facing the sofa at the time of the shooting. This could not be true because it was physically impossible for the shooting to have occurred in the manner described given the layout of the room and considering that the entry wound was on the top, left side of Jacob’s skull. In order for Jacob to be facing the couch he would have had to been facing a westerly direction, and the bullet would have travelled towards the north or west side of the residence. However, in reality the bullet travelled toward the south side, went into the ceiling, and lodged in a beam in the attic.

Also, troubling, the three people that witnessed the shooting admitted that the gun was moved (after the 9-1-1 dispatcher told them not to move it).

The Sandusky County Coroner’s ruling of “suicide”, yet contending that Jacob “may not have realized the gun was loaded”, was based on the contentions of the Sheriff’s Department after the Sheriff’s Department did not call a qualified Detective to the scene of Jacob’s death, did not properly collect evidence, and freely permitted the destruction of valuable evidence. Further, the Sandusky County Coroner made the determination of essentially accidental suicide, which to this day he sticks by, without examining the death scene, without examining Jacob’s body, without gathering or reviewing any forensic evidence, and without talking to a single witness.

Renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht has declared that the Sandusky County’s Coroner’s ruling on Jacob’s death certificate was wrong. Dr. Cyril Wecht determined that, based upon his observations of the forensic autopsy he performed on Jacob’s body in September 2012, Jacob’s death was by homicide. Such observations included a lack of “stippling” at the entry wound site. Dr. Wecht stated as follows. “(i)n my professional opinion, based on a reasonable degree of medical and scientific certainty, there is no way that Limberios could have shot himself, either by accident or with suicidal intent. The shot had to be fired by someone else, and that Jacob’s death was a result of a homicide.”

After the investigation was closed initially the night of Jacob’s death, Jacob’s family continued to question the circumstances of Jacob’s death. However, despite the family’s continuing questions, the Sheriff’s Department refused to conduct any further investigation, declaring the investigation “over” on April 9, 2012. Jacob’s parents were forced to hire Counsel. Over the course of the next few months, Counsel repeatedly tried to contact the Sandusky County Coroner, who refused to talk or communicate with Counsel. In addition, Counsel repeatedly asked the Sandusky County Prosecutor to conduct an autopsy of Jacob. Those requests were refused.

After several months of requesting Sandusky County officials to conduct a proper investigation into the death of their son, and continuous refusal to do so, Jacob’s parents, Michael and Shannon Limberios, were forced to file a case on October 19, 2012 (over seven months after Jacob’s death). Finally, on November 2, 2012, it seemed that Sandusky County was going to reopen the investigation into Jacob’s death. However, to date, and over a year after Jacob’s death, it seems that Sandusky County still has not conducted a meaningful investigation into his death.

The Sandusky County Prosecutor and his successor have sought delays in Jacob’s family’s search for the truth, have accused them and their Counsel of manufacturing evidence, have publicly suggested that Michael and Shannon Limberios “bought and paid for” results of the autopsy report that suggested Jacob did not kill himself, have publicly suggested that they have evidence to support their untenable position that Jacob shot himself but have not shared what that evidence is. Even more so, Sandusky County has refused Michael and Shannon Limberios’ requests to have the as the Ohio Attorney General come in and take over the investigation.

All of the above actions have taken a tremendous emotional and economic toll on Michael and Shannon Limberios. They have repeatedly stated that all they want is to know what happened to their son on the night that he died. With each passing day Michael and Shannon Limberios suffer more grief, not only from the loss of their son, but also from the what seems to be the repeated and incessant refusal of Sandusky County to conduct a meaningful investigation which would give them the answer to what happened to Jacob. Given this, they have not even begun to heal from their horrible loss.